Risks and Opportunities of
Non-Bank-Based Financing for Agriculture: the Case of
Agricultural Value Chain Financing
Rauno Zander
value chain financing
Rauno Zander
Bonn 2016
Discussion Paper / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik ISSN 1860-0441
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Dr Rauno Zander is an independent researcher. He completed his doctoral research with funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) and worked as a lecturer on agricultural finance at the Faculty of International Agricultural Economics of the Technical University of Berlin. He has published with the FAO, IFAD, OECD and other development agencies and was part of the Scientific Advisory Board of the leading journal on development finance Savings and Development. His main areas of specialization are Agricultural and Rural Finance in Developing Economies.
© Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik gGmbH Tulpenfeld 6, 53113 Bonn
+49 (0)228 94927-0
+49 (0)228 94927-130 Email: die@die-gdi.de www.die-gdi.de
This study was commissioned by the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) in Bonn, Germany. DIE researcher Florence Dafe drafted the terms of reference and oversaw the study, Dr Michael Brüntrup and Dr Kathrin Berensmann were involved in reviewing drafts of this study. Special thanks are due to the participants of the review meeting at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in Bonn on 5 December 2014. The meeting was chaired by Susanne Dorasil, Head of the Economic Policy, Financial Sector Division of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. This was attended by Dr Thomas Breuer, Andreas Springer-Heinze, Ariane Riemann, Ellen Funch and Joscha Albert from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH; Dr Michael Brüntrup, Dr Kathrin Berensmann and Florence Dafe from DIE. The KfW Development Bank (Germany) was represented by video link (Vanessa Eidt and Ron Weber).
This study was made possible through funding by the BMZ. The author benefited from guidance, comments and suggestions from all members of the December review meeting and is sincerely grateful for the time expended by and the availability of a few key resource persons in conducting this study: from the GIZ, Roland Gross and Thomas Breuer; from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Calvin Miller as the lead contact and a source of advice throughout the study and Carlos da Silva also from the Technical Division at the FAO Head Office; from the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Michael Hamp and his colleagues at the Head Office in Rome. Emmanuela Mashayo from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) advised on various aspects and co-authored one case study from South Sudan. Mark Wenner from the Inter- American Development Bank (IAB) provided guidance.
The responsibility for the study remains solely with the author and any views or conclusions should not be attributed to DIE or any of its research staff.
Bonn, November 2015 Rauno Zander
Acknowledgements Abbreviations
Summary 1
1 Introduction 3
2 Value chain finance (VCF) in overview: concepts and typologies 4
2.1 The setting 4
2.2 Questions addressed in this study 5
2.3 Definitions 6
2.4 Topics governing value chain development discussions 7
2.5 General typology 9
2.6 Agricultural value chain finance (AVCF): instruments-based typology 11 3 Implications of value chain financing for agricultural and financial sector
development: literature review 15
3.1 Challenges 15
3.2 Types of literature on AVCF 16
3.3 Proposed frame of analysis 17
3.4 Literature on the impact of agricultural value chain development 18 3.5 AVCF through informal intermediaries a transitory phenomenon? 22
4 Case examples 24
4.1 Overview of the cases selected 24
4.2 Case example 1: accelerating production and post-harvest infrastructure in eastern
Rwanda using the value chain approach 24
4.3 Case example 2: fostering AVCF with the Agricultural Transformation Agency
(ATA) and the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) 27
4.4 Case example 3: the Competitive African Cotton for Pro-Poor Growth (COMPACI)
project – insights from Zambia 30
4.5 Case example 4: the KELIKO farmer association: increasing food production
through AVCF in South Sudan 34
4.6 Other cases: the Fairtrade Access Fund 36
4.7 Comparative view of the four main cases: key points 37
5 Emerging avenues for support and international cooperation 41
6 Conclusions and areas for further research 43
References 45
Boxes
Box 1: Typology of AVCF 12
Box 2: Possible areas for further research I 14
Box 3: Potentials and risks of AVCF through non-bank intermediaries for
agricultural development 17
Box 4: Potentials and risks of AVCF through non-bank intermediaries for
sustainable financial sector development 17
Box 5: Possible areas for further research II 23
Box 6: Possible areas for further research III 43
Box 7: Summary of possible areas for further research 44
Figures
Figure 1: Total consumption and supply of grains and oils seeds
(in trillions of mt) 38
Figure 2: Agricultural share of credit versus agricultural share of GDP, Latin America
in 2010 39
Tables
Table 1: Summary of AVCF risks and opportunities in Rwanda 27 Table 2: Summary of AVCF risks and opportunities in Ethiopia (ECX) 30 Table 3: Summary of AVCF risks and opportunities in Zambia (COMPACI) 33 Table 4: Summary of AVCF risks and opportunities in South Sudan (KFAS) 36
ADB Asian Development Bank
ATA Agricultural Transformation Agency (Ethiopia) AVCF Agricultural value chain finance
BBVA Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (Peru) BCP Banco de Credito del Peru
BMGF Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
BMZ German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development
BoK Bank of Kigali
CBE Central Bank of Ethiopia CmiA Cotton Made in Africa
COMPACI Competitive African Cotton for Pro-Poor Growth DEG Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft
DIE Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik/German Development Institute ECX Ethiopian Commodity Exchange
EUR Euro
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FNB First National Bank (Zambia)
GDP Gross domestic product
GIZ Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GoE Government of Ethiopia
GoR Government of Rwanda
GPS Global Positioning System
GTP Growth and Transformation Plan (Ethiopia)
ha Hectare
IADB Inter-American Development Bank
IF Islamic financing
IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development
IIRR International Institute for Rural Reconstruction (Nairobi, Kenya) KFAS Keliko Farmers’ Association Society (South Sudan)
kg Kilogramme
KIT KIT Royal Tropical Institute (Netherlands)
KWAMP Kirehe Community Based Watershed Management Project (Rwanda) MFI Monetary financial institution
MINAGRI Ministry of Agriculture (Rwanda)
mt million tons
NABARD National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (India)
P4P Purchase for Progress (WFP)
Rwf Rwandan franc
SACCO Savings and Credit Co-operative
TA Technical assistance
TSP Tillage service providers USD United States dollar VCF Value chain finance
WFP United Nations World Food Programme
WHR Warehouse receipt
Summary
This study aims at providing some initial insights into the evidence and relevance of non- bank-based value chain financing, and in particular, at studying the implications of these financing arrangements for agricultural and financial sector development. The focus is on risks and opportunities of non-bank-based forms of agricultural financing for financial and agricultural sector development and financial stability. The study then presents strategies through which to reduce unwanted risks for financial sector development and to better reach priority sections of the rural population such as small farmers and micro and small rural enterprises in agricultural value chains. Finally, the study also discusses the potential for linking non-bank-based forms of financing with the formal financial sector in order to ensure compliance with the approaches of sustainable financial sector development (notably sustainable access, usage and quality of a wide range of financial services).
Having first defined key terms, this research paper then outlines some of the major areas of current discussion on agricultural value chain support in a development finance context:
contract farming, trader credit, and other types of interlinked credit transactions to support produce purchase. It also outlines the main contextual elements of what, together, constitute agricultural value chain finance. An instrument-based typology of agricultural value chain financing is then outlined in more detail.
The literature review compares the main types of literature on agricultural value chain financing. The large body of available literature containing normative suggestions and guidance is the least likely to include information on implications of agricultural value chain financing for the agricultural and financial sector. On the whole, one must conclude that there is a considerable gap in knowledge in the available literature with regard to adequate information on this topic.
The main risks for agricultural sector development that emanate from the non-bank financing of agricultural value chains relate to the constraints that this financing imposes.
Some sources argue that it can hold back the general process of development and transformation of rural economies. For financial sector development, risks relate to access to and the quality of financial services, the range and usage of financial services, and aspects of responsible finance and consumer protection. This study points to some evidence of all of these risks, and discusses these with reference to case examples from Rwanda, Ethiopia, South Sudan and the Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungs- gesellschaft (DEG)/Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)- supported COMPACI initiative. Risks and opportunities for financial and agricultural sector development are characterized with regard to the three selected cases and then presented in a comparative overview.
Even if based on thin empirical evidence so far, it was possible to identify both the opportunities and the implications of non-bank financing of agricultural value chains. They relate to opportunities for funders and investors to improve governance aspects in the relevant value chains: future pro-poor support to agricultural value chains needs to pay attention to the identification and inclusion of poor and small producers into project- supported agricultural value chains. Inclusive finance should likewise embrace issues of responsible finance and protection of the rights of small producers, as well as consumer rights. Recent initiatives, such as the indicators for responsible finance and the norms and
guidelines of individual donors or investors, stress the principles of responsible finance, clarity on contract obligations and rights, as well as fair and equitable contract terms based on transparent criteria. These are the basis for trusting business relations, contract fulfilment and a reduced moral hazard on both sides. This applies all the more because of the sometimes informal contracts that prevail in non-bank-based forms of chain internal financing.
In terms of opportunities for linking non-bank-based forms of financing with the formal financial sector, the study contends that informal and non-bank financing of agricultural value chains in general will likely never be fully substituted by formal financial institutions. Even as financial sectors develop and reach higher levels of sophistication, there will always be market niches for non-formal financial intermediaries where loan requests are too specialized, too small or required too quickly to be serviced by a commercial bank.
There is an emerging consensus that external facilitation in the specific context of agri- cultural value chain development needs to be better focused on including poor small producers into a value chain. The discussion about how to actually achieve this inclusive development is still at the beginning. Views as to how pro-active donors should be in actually driving the development of value chains are divided, while the role of donor agencies as honest brokers between the worlds of agribusiness and financial institutions is just in the process of evolving.
1 Introduction
For several years now, various different agencies of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für technische Zusammenarbeit (GIZ, the German development cooperation) and other development partners have been involved in programmes supporting non-bank-based forms of financing for the agricultural sector such as agricultural value chain financing (AVCF). In the international policy debate on financial inclusion, non-bank-based forms of financing have also received attention due to their perceived potential to ease financing constraints on the private sector in developing countries.
However, it is not clear what the evidence of the risks and opportunities of non-bank-based forms of agricultural financing are for the development and stability of the financial sector as well as for the development of agricultural sectors. This study was initiated to get a better understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of non-bank-based forms of agricultural financing in initiating, implementing, and sustaining sound policies and programmes that achieve the desired results of job and income creation, rural development and food security. The focus of this study is on examining the risks and opportunities of AVCF with special emphasis on providers of capital other than banks, and including companies in agricultural value chains.
The objective of the study is to identify:
i) the risks and opportunities of non-bank-based forms of agricultural financing for financial and agricultural sector development and financial stability,
ii) the most successful strategies for minimizing risks to financial sector development and financial stability as well as risks for rural economic actors, in particular farmers and businesses in agricultural value chains,
iii) the opportunities for linking the non-bank-based forms of financing with the formal financial sector, with the aim of maximizing synergies and of ensuring compliance with the approaches of sustainable financial sector development (notably access, usage and quality of a wide range of sustainably provided financial services; responsible finance).
This study is based on desk research and case examples sourced from informants at various different field locations. It is carried out as a baseline study establishing a literature-based view on the implications of certain aspects of value chain financing for agricultural and financial sector development. Suggested areas for future research and follow up investigations are therefore specifically highlighted throughout this document for future reference. The case examples were analysed on the basis of expert interviews. The remainder of this study is divided into five subsequent sections.
Section 2, Value chain finance (VCF) in overview, introduces key concepts and typologies related to AVCF. The purpose of this section is to provide a thematic introduction to value chain development in general and AVCF in particular.
Section 3, Implications of value chain financing for agricultural and financial sector development: literature review, summarizes the current knowledge available on AVCF and presents the most important literature sources before exploring to what extent the available literature allows us to draw conclusions on the risks, opportunities and impact of AVCF on agriculture, rural and financial sector development.
Section 4 then presents four case examples with a focus on the risks and opportunities of non-bank-based forms of agricultural value chain financing. In addition, the case studies identify strategies for minimizing risks and for linking the non-bank-based forms of financing with the formal financial sector.
Section 5, Emerging avenues for support and international cooperation, then presents various different strata of external support and facilitation of AVCF in overview and compares the different approaches. The focus in this section is on support strategies that increase the potential of non-bank-based forms of AVCF and reduce their risks.
Section 6, Conclusions and areas for further research, summarizes the various different proposals for further analysis and research that were presented at the end of each section, outlines remaining gaps in knowledge, and suggests next steps.
2 Value chain finance (VCF) in overview: concepts and typologies
2.1 The setting
With the development of agricultural production systems, there has been a gradual shift from primarily subsistence-oriented family-farmers to commercially oriented producers.
Segmented, atomistic forms of production are changing: previously many separate links operated in isolation where farmers produced independently, without secured markets and were exposed to price risks along with insecure access to capital. In the emerging agricultural markets, this old conventional model of farming is now giving way globally to a new form of agriculture based on integrated systems, differentiated production and risk and information management with interdependent farmers producing at the bottom end of structured value chains (Shwedel, 2007). The farmer is only one link in the chain, and the entire chain will only be as strong as its weakest link.1
Rural producers face many challenges, for instance often limited natural resource base, new technology, input availability, marketing, quality and others. Improving production and marketing processes is also made more difficult, when working and investment capital is not available to the actors in the chains. This requires access to finance at the right time – and this must be stable and reliable over more than just a few cropping seasons.2 Serving the agricultural sector is particularly challenging for formal financial institutions. Often in rural areas population densities are lower, infrastructure less developed and access to information is more costly and difficult. In addition the soft skills, systems and procedures of commercial banks for providing financial services to producers, processors, traders and end users in the value chains are often not well developed.
Value chains can benefit from financing in different ways. Financing can come to chain actors from outside the chain, possibly through a loan from a bank to an agri-processor. Or financing can also be organized within chains. In this case, the same agri-processor would take available liquidity and use it as a simple loan to his supplying producers or could even
1 Following the German saying: “Die Kette ist nur so stark wie ihr schwächstes Glied”.
2 For initial discussions on conceptualizing access to finance analysis, see Adams (1994) and Zander (1994).
tie this loan formally to a purchase agreement. These loans can be used by a producer or processor as working capital or to finance investments.
Agricultural producers in developing economies usually borrow from traders, agro-dealers and produce buyers. Traders themselves borrow from wholesalers higher up the chain, and then lend to producers. Even the final point of sale to the ultimate consumer in AVCF in many cases supermarkets that have spread globally over the past two decades may lend (consumer loans to end clients) as well as borrow (receive inventory against invoices to be paid at a later date). These arrangements are often informal and do not involve banks and formal financial institutions. They can range from a simple cash advance from a friend to buy additional fertilizer to multi-layered and sophisticated trader lending chains.3
Different types of financing within a value chain at the lowest level (producer) or at the highest level of the chain (actor supplying to the ultimate consumer) have often been described in anthropological literature, then in sociological and socio-economic publications, and for the past decades also in the literature on development economics and development finance. There has been a gradual shift away from just describing the systems in their role and importance in village economies towards utilizing them as one approach in externally promoting the incomes and livelihoods of rural people. Also, in more recent works, the perspectives of the chain actors themselves are receiving more attention. While the early literature4 deemed that traders and moneylenders were usurious and exploitative, damaging producers more than helping them, Dale Adams stands for a new group of academics who took a fresh look at trader credit and, starting with empirical works in the late 1980s, captured the views and constraints of produce buyers, traders and other rural small business people involved in petty trade:
I have yet to find a merchant who would not prefer cash transactions over those involving credit. This suggests to me that most merchants view lending as a nuisance rather than as a way to sweat additional profits out of their customers (Adams, 1992, p. 17).
In this current introductory section, the relevant terms are first defined, followed by an outline of the main questions to be addressed in the study. The final part of the section then introduces some typologies of non-bank agricultural value chain finance (AVCF) in a comparative overview.
2.2 Questions addressed in this study
The purpose of this study is to provide some initial insights into the evidence and relevance of non-bank-based value chain financing, and in particular to study the implications of these financing arrangements for agricultural and financial sector development. Derived from the objectives of the study the questions addressed here are:
3 These layered trader credit links of times gone by have been referred to as “gold coasting” (Geis, 1967, p. 189).
4 Best known are probably the All India Rural Credit Surveys of the Reserve Bank of India and their successor surveys, the All India Debt and Investment Surveys (AIDIS).
i) What are the (main) risks and opportunities of non-bank-based forms of agricultural financing for financial and agricultural sector development and financial stability?
ii) What are the most successful strategies for minimizing risks for financial sector development and financial stability as well as risks for the target group (farmers and businesses in agricultural value chains)?
iii) What are the (main) opportunities for linking the non-bank-based forms of financing with the formal financial sector, with the aim of maximizing synergies and ensuring compliance with the approaches of sustainable financial sector development (notably the sustainable access, usage and quality of a wide range of services). How can one use inputs from the literature to enhance sustainable financial market development?
2.3 Definitions
In the 1960s, French scientists coined the term of filières, or threads, to model the flow of physical inputs and services in the production of a final product.5 Michael Porter first defined the term ‘value chain’ in the context of business management in the late 1980s.
There is no single general definition of the two most relevant terms for this study, namely
‘value chains’ and ‘value chain finance’. Miller and Jones (2010, p. xv) define value chains as “a set of actors who conduct a linked sequence of value-adding activities involved in bringing a product from its raw material stage to the final consumer.” Set against this is the definition of the KIT Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) and the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) (2010) who see value chains as
the full range of activities that are required to bring a product from its conception to its end use. The value chain consists of enterprises that collaborate in various degrees; the chain is defined by its raw material and market segment.
These two definitions have the constituting elements ‘actors’, ‘activities’ and ‘product development’ in common. They both stress that these chains can range from the stage of raw material at the beginning of the chain to the final consumer.
Noteworthy is also the more pragmatic definition of a recent study by the Dalberg company (Carroll et al., 2012, p. 3):
The sequence of activities to turn raw input into finished output; in the case of agriculture, the value chain may include (but is not limited to) input provision, production, processing, transport, storage, marketing, and export.
Similarly, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) (2012, p. vii) attempts to keep things simple:
agricultural value chains are defined here as
…organized linkages between groups of producers, traders, processors, and service providers (including nongovernment organizations) that join together to improve productivity and the value added from their activities.
5 For a discussion of this early application of a concept similar to value chain analysis, see Kaplinsky and Morris (2002, p. 5, referring to Raikes, Jensen, & Ponte, 2000).
While the definitions of Dalberg and ADB are more encompassing, the gain in precision is lost in terms of simplicity and clarity. All of the above definitions have departed from the original definition of the term by Michael Porter as “a chain of activities that a firm operating in a specific industry performs in order to deliver a valuable product or service for the market” (Porter, 1985, p. 13). In this document, the definition of Miller and Jones (2010) is adopted as the one now generally accepted for AVCF in a development context.
Value chain finance (VCF) denotes all financing arrangements within a specific value chain or from outside the chain. As the concept of value chains and their financing is broad and multifaceted, the terms ‘value chain’ and ‘VCF’ necessarily refer to a broad range of different instruments and mechanisms. In this study, the term non-bank financing refers to all financing from within or outside the value chains of sources other than banks. This includes all other formal and semi-formal financing institutions, including non-governmental organisation (NGOs) and cooperatives, and even non-loan-based financing such as non- repayable contributions, matching grants or similar arrangements, as well as vertical integration structures, where the sources of loans become integrated into the company structure. Informal financing is included. This can originate from outside the chains, mainly in the form of loans from friends and relatives, but is mostly from within the chain in the form of different types of vendor financing
2.4 Topics governing value chain development discussions
Value chain development is proposed by KIT to take mainly three forms:
a) Forming new chains (‘crafting new chains’)
b) Providing working capital to chain actors (‘improving chain liquidity’) c) Investments within existing chains (‘unleashing investments in the chain’).
This follows the logic of general agricultural financing (new investments, re-investments and current asset financing) and is a useful typology for the development of value chains.
A bias towards better-off producers? Proponents of AVCF have faced the criticism that VCF support aids the better-off and may keep poor producers at lower income levels while destroying their classical family-farming situation in favour of a free market philosophy that helps promoters and chain actors more than the producers themselves. And among the producers, it is the small ones that may drop behind. Compared to those who are ‘less poor’, the very poor tend to have fewer productive assets and fewer relationships with people who are ‘well connected’, have guanxi in Mandarin and are upwardly mobile. These poor smallholders have a reduced ability to take on the monetary, time and social risks required for strengthening their market positions (Garloch, 2012), whereas the already wealthier and robust producers will be even better off as a result of value chain support.
This is a real and justified concern. The required focus on lead firms within chains and their internal financing does not help to allay these reservations. Similarly, the empowerment of the private sector, that represents another corner stone of value chain support, is similarly not likely to reduce scepticism towards the concept where this may exist.
Against this background, donors and other external promoters stress the need for AVCF activities to be client-oriented, in particular in relation to the concerns and possible access barriers of small and marginal farmers and other primary producers. Market and financial exclusion are seen as critical areas for an obstacle and risk analysis and the identification of strategies for minimizing the risk and a higher level of inclusiveness of the financing options.6
In a small way, this present study tries to contribute to this discussion by focusing on the risks of value chain financing, as well as on opportunities emanating from these mechanisms.
It aims to be one of the many steps required towards establishing a format to analyse the impact of non-bank AVCF and thus may ultimately contribute to a better response to questions of impact and implications for the agricultural and financial sector.
Structured and loose agricultural value chains. Both the literature and the example cases contained in Section 4 of this study differentiate between highly organized and more sophisticated value chains, such as dairy and horticulture, and the looser value chains that prevail in the area of agricultural staple crops, such as paddy rice and indigenous root crops. The concluding sections of this study will take this perspective up again and contend that looser value chains are the ones that capture more of the smallholders and producers that are not well integrated into markets and financial services. If development is to be catalysed here, external facilitation will be required more often. Depending on the type of value chain (‘structured’ versus ‘loose’), technology, quality and safety concerns and the need for precise on-time delivery may open up new opportunities for financing.
Relationships between partners would need to become tighter, more solid and trust-based;
here value chain financing can act as a ‘glue’ to cement these relationships. The more limited and specialized the marketing channels and intermediaries are, the closer and better structured an AVC tends to evolve.
What has precedence? Agricultural policy or financial sustainability perspectives?
Another concern that dominates the debate on value chain development and ways of prioritizing support is the precedence of agricultural policy perspectives or perspectives of sustainable financial development. The conceptualization of agricultural value chains as a framework for development originates from the agricultural production and policy sphere.
First works on this (Bernet, Thiele, & Zschocke, 2006; Kaplinsky & Morris, 2002) were production-focused and embedded into objectives of a dynamic analysis of the improved quality and quantity of agricultural commodities. The financing perspective came in later, a development that is well-reflected in the synthesis of the three publications of KIT on value chains. The first publication is on producers and their associations (KIT Royal Tropical Institute [KIT], Faida Market Link, and International Institute of Rural Reconstruction [IIRR], 2006), the second is on value chain actors other than the producer level (KIT & IIRR, 2008) while only the final one (KIT & IIRR, 2010) deals with the subject of VCF. Other early proponents such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) broadened the discussion at an early date towards the provision of financial services by value chain actors. Part of the reason was the early lead in the discussion taken by the Dutch Rabobank with showcases from Mexico and several African countries. Depending what the hierarchy of the goals of the interventions were, these could then take different
6 Michael Hamp, IFAD Lead Rural Finance Advisor in personal communication, December 2014.
forms and pursue different objectives. It seems that here the challenge for future policy dialogue is twofold: First, the financial sustainability objectives and their rationale need to be better explained and communicated. Secondly, the agricultural policy objectives with their emphasis on creating wealth and on social and productive contributions of the agricultural sector need likewise to be more strongly articulated while the primate in discussions should not be left a priori to the economists.
2.5 General typology
This study proposes to differentiate between different types of non-bank actors involved in AVCF. Between them, they constitute the various primary building blocks that in their totality make up most of the realm of value chain financing. A more detailed typology by Miller and Jones (2010), introduced below, operates with higher levels of differentiation.
The broad categories are proposed to include trader credit for input supply, contract farming, other interlinked credit transactions to support produce purchase, different types of Islamic financing and, lastly, other types of joint venture financing that are relevant for agricultural value chains in developing economies worldwide.
Trader credit for input supply. Chukwu (1976, p. 366) defines trader loans in general as being different from those of other informal credit sources in a village economy because
“they do not have a primary focus on the credit transaction as such and the charging of interest, but the loan is granted as a means to secure the supply through agricultural producers”.7 In this segment, and depending on the prevalence of the specific value chain, there are good quality field studies, both sociological and empirical, available to describe the systems. However, questions of impact at individual and household level, as well as implications at sectoral level for both the agricultural and financial sector, have not been considered over and above some cursory evidence of exploitative relationships in specific South Indian contexts (India, Nepal, and to a lesser extent Pakistan).8 The readiness to analyse these implications further seems to have been limited by the overall unfavourable image of traders and their loans. Documented risks relate to the uncertain nature of the business relationship and the lack of enforceable contracts that underpin most of the trader loans for input supply.
Contract farming. The literature on implications of these arrangements for the agricultural sector is probably the strongest for this type of value chain financing. Contract farming is a captive relationship with the potential to add value to both contract parties.
The core problem of contract farming is non-compliance with contracts by both parties (Brüntrup & Peltzer, 2007). For the producer, the contract stipulates the delivery of produce of a certain quality and for a secure pre-determined price. For the produce buyer, it ensures the supply of the required commodity in advance of harvest time and with quality specifications that are in sync with market requirements. A contract in agricultural value chain development coordinates the roles and responsibilities of the signatories and specifies incentives and allocation of risks (Da Silva & Rankin, 2013, p. 23). A contract in an outgrower scheme can consist of the determination of quantities to be supplied by the
7 See also International Fund for Agricultural Development (2003), stating that for the countries researched a decade ago, cash payments for agricultural inputs were still the norm.
8 See Bouman (1989) and Schrader (1994) to highlight a few of the influential studies on this subject.
primary producer, specifications of quality of the produce, a floor price, or a differential pricing system with prices set for different qualities supplied. Specific clauses pertain to the financial obligations of both parties to the contract. For inputs supplied, the contract lists these and contains their prices. A contract with a purchasing counterparty can provide security to a farmer that what is produced today will have a secure market outlet at the time of harvest. For small farmers, the risk-reducing quality of contracts is particularly enticing.
Sale of produce at harvest time is assured and a big uncertainty taken away from the farmer. Often contracts are signed between a large group of producers and one single lead firm in the sector. Del Monte for pineapples in the Philippines or Chiquita for bananas in Honduras are well-known examples. Outgrowers then cultivate under contract with a lead firm. This company contracts farmers directly and provides other services to ensure that production goals are met. This may include working capital (inputs), technical advice and supervision of outgrower production. The contract guarantees that the lead firm purchases the produce and thus secures a safe outlet for a farmer. Prices agreed at the time of contract signing may, however, be lower than actual market prices later on leading to ‘side- selling’.9 The FAO has been working on contract farming over the past decade as one key approach to link farmers to markets (Da Silva, 2005; Da Silva & Rankin, 2013).
Contract farming arrangements will be detailed in Section 3 and then exemplified in one of the case studies in Section 4. Additionally, there is the risk that contract farming arrangements will not include smaller and unorganized single producers and only operate with a cluster of larger farmers located in close vicinity to each other. Strategies for linking this type of arrangement with formal financial institutions appear far-ranging. This is because progressive banks have always liked purchase agreements for produce that underpin loan requests of producers and processors (‘contract based banking’). In many countries of Africa, lending to organized agricultural producers that can present sales contracts with government agencies, processors or end consumers, is strongly on the increase.
Other types of interlinked credit transactions to support produce purchase. Providing loans among value chain actors not with a specific profit expectation out of loan interest rates to be received, but in order to facilitate arrangements in the parallel production sphere can also be less formalized. The ‘contract’ is oral, but still binding. Breaking it does not involve legal sanctions, but it leads to the producer losing his secure point of sale of agricultural produce. Most of the interlinked credit transactions carried out in a traditional village context follow this pattern and are well described in the sociological or anthropological literature contained in the literature list at the end of this study.
Implications, if analysed at all, are restricted to the immediate village environment. A larger regional, or even national, focus cannot be traced in the literature reviewed and was not the objective in the first place in the conducting of these studies. On the farmer’s side, the risks inherent in these transactions are pronounced with less legal coverage than written contracts would offer. One of the earliest examples (Wilmington, 1955) described in the literature is the sheil system of the Sudan, where the grain is already sold in informal forward contracts to produce buyers, with the small producers taking the full climatic and cultivation risk in the process. As in the other approaches, the key issue is the transparency of the prices to be agreed on and actually used as a basis to offset the loans against produce supplied by the borrower to the creditor.
9 The opposite may also occur: prices may also be higher leading to denial of purchase by the purchasing company.
Islamic financing (IF). Lamon Rutten was the first to recognize and analyse the similarities between IF techniques and structured finance, of which AVCF is a subgroup (Rutten, 2006; for practical applications, see also Moors & Rutten, 2014). IF subsumes a number of value chain financing instruments that are compliant with Islamic customs and religious practice (sharia). Quite a sizeable share of sharia-compliant financing that is supported by external facilitators operates within value chains. The literature on relevant IF instruments specifically for agricultural financing is not very diverse.10 By far the most widely used form of IF in the context of developing economies is sharia-compliant leasing or murabaha. Joint ownership and equity-based financing of the musharaka type is most convenient for larger ticket transactions, while specific agricultural financing methods such as salaam are intensively discussed but not applied in many countries. This scheme with in-kind provision and recovery of seasonal inputs operates in practice mainly in Malaysia and Sudan. Other mechanisms such as mudabarah exist as well and have potential in a AVCF approach. Innovations and refinements of IF instruments are one of the most interesting areas in the current debate on AVCF and development financing. The declining musharaka is mentioned as one example, applied in Malaysia and to be launched in Afghanistan shortly by microfinance institutions. The FAO has recently summarized the specific experience relating to Islamic agricultural smallholder finance mechanisms in an unpublished training note. This is also reflected in an annex to the French translation of Miller and Jones (2013). This current study does not intend to emphasize IF techniques and AVCF, although its different forms of equity and joint ownership financing between different actors in value chains falls well within the definition of VCF. At present, the most often used IF instruments are sharia-compliant leasing arrangements of the murabaha type, but instruments can become significantly more sophisticated.
Other relevant types of joint venture financing. Producers may come together in cooperatives or joint enterprises to generate the capital required for larger investment purchases or infrastructure investments (Fries, Chalmers, & Grover, 2012, p. 11). Owners have collective access to equipment and may receive dividend payments generated by its use. The sharing of lead company dividends with trusted and reliable primary producers has been proposed as one way to prevent side-selling and breach of contract in contract farming. Fries et al. (2012) observe that this requires trust between lead enterprises and investing producers and a reliable basis for all partners to monitor performance of the joint venture (and thus, future profits and dividend payments). In India, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), in its non-farm sector rural support pro- grammes, has been promoting these joint venture financing models. The risks for both parties, producers and lenders, are however considerable.
2.6 Agricultural value chain finance (AVCF): instruments-based typology
The most widely accepted typology in the current discussion is the one proposed and introduced by the FAO (Miller & Jones, 2010) in their standard publication on agricultural value chain financing. This typology uses the type of financial instrument employed and breaks these down into product financing, receivables financing, physical asset
10 Most of the more comprehensive documents in development agencies can be traced back to seminar proceedings of the Near East and North Africa Regional Agricultural Credit Association (NENARACA).
collateralization, risk mitigation products, and financial enhancements. Box 1 contains the typology in overview:
The most often used instruments in AVCF are contract farming and outgrower schemes.
These were outlined as a separate block above: some useful descriptions of results and positive/negative impacts are discussed in more detail in the following section; trade credit finances produce in advance or in different stages of partly processed goods against the later receipt of payment for the processed goods. The Miller and Jones (2010) typology in Box 1 lists a large number of additional AVCF financing instruments. The more relevant of the instruments listed in the Box are briefly outlined below. Similar to the discussion on the major building blocks of AVCF, for the more prevalent of these instruments the risks, opportunities and strategies for linking them to commercial banks are briefly discussed.
Box 1: Typology of AVCF A. Product financing
Trader credit, input supplier credit, marketing company credit, lead firm financing B. Receivables financing
Trade receivables finance, factoring, forfeiting C. Physical asset collateralization
Warehouse receipt, repurchase agreements, financial lease D. Risk mitigation products
Insurance, forward contracts, futures E. Financial enhancements
Securitization instruments, loan guarantees, joint venture financing Source: Miller & Jones (2010), pp. 55-57
Warehouse receipts (WHRs). In this system, farmers take their produce to a warehouse and receive a receipt specifying quantity, quality and the price of the deposited commodity lot. Depositors then use this receipt as collateral for a loan with a bank that accepts these receipts as collateral substitutes. In this system, the depositor does not need to sell his produce to gain liquidity out of the harvested produce, but can store to reach arbitrage gains. For the depositor, the main risks of this system are that the produce stored and the lot recovered at the end of the storage period need not be identical: although higher quality grain is stored, lower quality grain may come out of the warehouse and the warehouse operator benefits this way. The existence of an independent assessment unit is the most pragmatic way of addressing this risk, and countries with a good warehousing system for agricultural commodities have an obligatory independent testing facility at entry and exit. Among the many other risks that this relatively complex VCF instrument has inbuilt, the risk of price manipulations and non-transparent settings of prices is the one that deters most potential depositors from using even licensed and government-controlled warehouses. For the warehouse operator, in addition to price risks there are risks related to the store management (hygiene, rodents, etc.) and of the correct interpretation of market movements.
Opportunities exist mainly for governments in structuring warehousing and adding improved quality controls to the system. This is exemplified in the case example below from Ethiopia (see Sub-section 4.2). Strategies for linking with the banking sector build on the basic fact that the commodity stored can – in principle – act as a suitable collateral for farmers with cash requirements but little else than their produce to secure a loan for the next
cultivation season. In practice, credit departments in many developing country banks are fully aware of the system and have all operated it at some time in the past. High market fluctuations and the demanding organizational and logistical requirements that come with this instrument, have restricted it in many countries11 , while in others with a tighter link between warehousers and financers12, it is still expanding.
Different from this are inventory credit (Coulter & Shepherd, 2004) systems. Here, the bank takes a lien on the produce itself and maintains ownership of the commodities deposited. This is organizationally even more demanding and requires the bank to be legally responsible for the inventory taken into custody. For special types of value chains, this type of lending arrangement is sometimes still in use.
Repurchase agreements (‘repos’) constitute another related instrument of commodity finance. Here, the bank purchases the agricultural produce from the seller (producer associa- tion, cooperative), with an agreement to make the produce available again for re-purchase at a specified point in time in the future. Repos are an advanced financial instrument that is not normally accessible to individual small producers and is only offered to producer associations in a few cases in Latin America.
Different forms of leasing are an alternative to long-term loans to buy equipment, which many financial institutions may consider too risky. The leasing company provides the farmer (or other borrower) with equipment on a contract basis for a few years, while the farmer pays off the lease in instalments. At the end of the lease period, the leasing company either repossesses the equipment or offers to sell it to the farmer. Leasing is less risky than a loan because the equipment remains the property of the owner, who can withdraw it easily if the farmer defaults on payments. With a loan, by contrast, it may be difficult to take possession of the collateral offered to guarantee a loan because of legal constraints and weak judicial systems. In the case of Islamic finance (IF), paying leasing fees is permitted while paying interest is not (ribah). This explains while leasing-based murabaha systems are the most widely used IF instruments to date. The main risk for the lessor is the default of the lessee on the instalments and re-possession of the lease-financed item. There are several examples of large lease-financed promotional programmes where there have been problems with the lease-promoted investments (such as tractors or taxis): if there is no secondary market for the re-possessed items, banks may have to store and manage large fleets of tractors or taxi vehicles. Opportunities exist once the legal framework is established to enable the operations of leasing companies and the legal treatment of lease items.
Other financial instruments that are contained in the Miller and Jones (2010) typology are employed much less often. In the case of facturing, a farmer delivers the produce to the buyer and writes an invoice for the amount delivered. Instead of asking the buyer to pay, the farmer sells the invoice to a third party, a facturing house. The facturing house pays the farmer immediately (discounted for a fee to be paid for the facturing services), then submits the invoice to the buyer for payment. In Peru, this is used by staple crop producers.
Electronic factoring products of a few innovative banks such as the BBVA13 Peru enable
11 See Zander (2014) for Turkey in the past.
12 As the case of Caritas RIM in Rwanda shows, where engineers of Caritas oversee the technical aspects of warehousing as store and quality managers on behalf of RIM.
13 Part of the BBVA Spain, or Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria.
producers to free up capital, either after purchasing inputs, or advancing credit to buyers (Grace, Moyes, & Spahr, 2014).14 Again, in the Latin American context and mentioned by the same source, the Ficohsa Bank in Honduras lends to chain actors on the basis of forward contracts being in place.
Vertical integration through the purchase of equity. In this most tightly integrated business model, different chain actors melt into a single conglomerate. The financial instrument used for the merger is the purchase of equity. A chain actor lower down the chain (for example, the processing factory) acquires a stake in a producer cooperative or further up the chain (for example, the producer cooperative purchases majority equity in the coffee roster factory or similar).
Résumé: Section 2 provides the basis for the subsequent review of literature and cases studied. It began by defining the terms ‘value chain’ and ‘VCF’ and outlined some of the major areas of current discussion surrounding agricultural value chains in a development finance context. The section then presented the main contextual elements of what, together, constitute AVCF before introducing the instrument-based typology of Miller and Jones (2010).
Box 2: Possible areas for further research I
- The two entry propositions for agricultural value chain development differ in their primary objectives:
contribution to financial sector development (medium to long-term perspective) versus facilitation of production, marketing and post-harvest processes (often more short-term and a project objective).
Further studies are required to more clearly lay out under which framework conditions each of the two approaches is more useful.
- Typologies for agricultural value chain finance are still emerging. There is still a need for a typology that is comprehensive and captures the different forms of internal and external value chain financing mechanisms and is still also accessible to outsiders who are not very familiar with rural and trade- financing mechanisms. Simpler, and at the same time more encompassing, definitions are likely to come up in this emerging segment of rural finance research, and future studies could provide contributions in this regard.
14 Fries et al. (2012, p. 9) also suggest the possibility of reverse facturing. In this case, the financial institution collaborates with buyers, rather than suppliers, in order to aggregate a large number of small suppliers with accounts receivable.
3 Implications of value chain financing for agricultural and financial sector development: literature review
3.1 Challenges
The knowledge available on non-bank based agricultural value chain financing is comparatively scarce. There are a number of specific challenges that limit the available and accessible information on AVCF considerably. These are:
i) the reluctance of private sector and agricultural business chain actors to share their information with others because of confidentiality concerns related to their business models;
ii) the reluctance of banks and other financial institutions to disclose operational and performance details on their agricultural business portfolio because of confidentiality concerns related to specific portfolio cases;
iii) the reluctance of analysts and authors to disclose details about results and impacts, because initiatives are in many cases new and results not well documented or not robust enough to stand detailed scrutiny.
Against this background, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) speaks of “tacit knowledge” (Thomas Breuer15) and recommends one-to-one inter- views with key business professionals directly involved as value chain actors as a way forward. Other donors are trying to pull individually collected knowledge together by means of various different mechanisms: the World Bank is bringing practitioners together by means of its Agriculture Finance Support Facility.
Another, less publicized, but promising way forward is the approach of the Dutch donors group coordinated by KIT, the Royal Institute of Amsterdam. KIT has coordinated three so- called ‘writeshops’ as a basis for its three major (yet not well known and disseminated) books on various different aspects of VCF. The ‘writeshop approach’ gives a voice to practitioners who represent interesting experiences that generally remain unpublished. There is much to learn from practice, and the writeshop approach is the Dutch donor group effort to bringing this untapped knowledge to the surface.16 As shown below, it has produced a number of concrete results in terms of dealing with the subject of implications of AVCF.
These strategies to generate information on AVCF in general and, insofar as it is possible, on implications in particular, are not mutually exclusive and can even reinforce each other.
It remains important in this study to note that the specific constraints of obtaining appropriate information in this field are recognized and useful coping strategies developed.
15 Personal communication, September 2014.
16 For KIT and IIRR (2010) this process is explained in the preface of the book. Each contributor brought to the writeshop a draft manuscript describing interventions by an external financial institution providing services to chain actors. Each case focused on how VCF contributed to smoothing the chain and competi- tiveness. They were asked to bring with them other printed materials and photographs relevant to their case. The 37 participants included managers and staff of financial institutions, business development services, private companies and cooperatives, as well as farmers, development professionals, researchers, facilitators, artists, and editors.
The methodology of this study is based on a review and sifting of available literature, collection and analysis of information and documents along with the experience of relevant countries and international institutions. This desk study methodology is then complemented by a number of interviews with key resource persons from donors and the national policy areas.
3.2 Types of literature on AVCF
There appear to be three types of document available that relate to agricultural value chain financing. The nature of all three of these limits the scope and coverage of impact and implication-related information that has been sought for this particular study.
The first body of literature provides normative information and guidance. As value chain development and VCF is a novel subject, domestic support and international donor agencies are grappling with emerging approaches of how to support this segment as well as with their specific positioning within the wider set of challenges in support of value chains and VCF.
Usually, policy advice is then derived from the set of normative recommendations. Early examples are included in the list of references (Bernet et al., 2006; Bernhardt, Azar, &
Klaehn, 2009; Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit, 2008; Herr & Muzira 2009; Quirós, 2007). More recent well-known examples include Fries et al. (2012).
The second, much smaller type of documents sets out facts and figures of financing within and towards various different value chains. These descriptive documents with detailed information on costs of credit and other loan contract components focus on effective interest rates for the producers involved, on transaction costs, and on the costs and risks of funding alternatives (in a few cases). GIZ has produced an important recent example with a cross-country comparative study from sub-Saharan Africa (Pelrine, 2013).
It remains to be noted, however, that major problems are encountered in this approach as are well summarized by Mark Wenner:
One of the biggest obstacles in doing field research on agricultural value chains is the poor record keeping and the unwillingness to get key actors in the chain to share financial and economic data. In the cases where data is available, the impression I get is embeddedness. It is very hard to calculate the effective cost of anything because the relationships are multi-stranded.17
Ambiguity as to how to apportion costs is caused by the different motivations of buyers and sellers together with the lack of clarity in informal arrangements such as what to include in the calculation of cost, prices, and so on (Pelrine, 2013). In everyday reality in the field, even simple coordinates that need to be defined in order to measure performance and impact can cause major challenges. This is well captured in the NORC18 yield assessment report for the COMPACI project that is detailed further below in one of the case studies. NORC did not take plot size information for cotton fields of smallholders at face value, but counter checked and re-measured them. The entire challenge of simply determining the size of a small farmer
17 Personal communication, November 2014.
18 NORC used to stand for the National Opinion Research Center of the University of Chicago. Since 2010 it is the proper name of this organization.
cotton plot is well explained in the recent NORC monitoring report (NORC at the University of Chicago, 2013b, pp. 17-23).19
A third, even smaller group of documents, usually dating back 10 to 50 years, are anthropological and sociological studies and other field studies that use extensive partici- pant observation methods within the villages. These brought the internal value chain financing mechanisms in rural economies into a wider rural development perspective. Impact issues are discussed in these publications but are usually limited to the level of the village or the local rural context (Southwold-Llewellyn, 1987).20
3.3 Proposed frame of analysis21
This section and the subsequent presentation of four detailed cases (plus a few more case summaries) deal with the implications of AVCF of non-bank financial intermediaries, in both internal and external financing of chains. The term ‘implication’ is then sub-divided into potentials and risks. For the productive i.e., non-financial sector perspective in general and particularly, the agricultural sector, the potentials and risks can be grouped around the following main subjects (see Box 3):
Box 3: Potentials and risks of AVCF through non-bank intermediaries for agricultural development
Quality of the produce
Quantity of the produce
Income distribution effects of AVCF development initiatives
Income-related parameters
Social and quality of life-related parameters Source: Author
Similarly, for the financial sector the corresponding potentials and risks can be grouped as follows (Box 4):
Box 4: Potentials and risks of AVCF through non-bank intermediaries for sustainable financial sector development
Access to financial services
Quality of financial services
Usage of financial services
Range of financial services
Aspects of responsible finance and consumer protection Source: Author
19 The conclusion of the seven page analysis is that in measuring plot sizes of smallholders, the resulting yield estimates should not be based on farmer recall in any form or on cotton company purchase records, but on GPS-measured area of the field.
20 A prominent German researcher on informal vendor finance is Heiko Schrader, sociologist professor from the University of Bielefeld (see, for instance, Schrader (1994), and for the West Africa region, Geis (1967).
21 Thanks go to Florence Dafe of DIE in particular for assistance in shaping this frame of analysis
